Category Archives: Film & TV

Here’s a good example of why you need to take care in how you make snap judgments about things (as in, judgments made quickly and potentially without all the facts, not judgments where it’s judged to be appropriate to wag your head and yell, “Oh snap”). Before sitting down to watch it for this review, I’d never seen Crusher Joe. Not only had I never seen it, it never even occurred to me that I might want to see it. I’d heard of it, seen it around, but I never bothered with it. And I handled it in this matter for one reason and one reason only: the title sounded kind of lame. I mean, Crusher Joe? Wasn’t he in Mike Tyson’s Punch Out? Wasn’t he one of the ham ‘n’ eggers the old WWF would trot out for their Saturday Night Main Event when they wanted someone for a superstar to beat? I think Crusher Joe used to tag team with Leapin’ Lanny Poffo.

People who are not familiar with the character of Lupin the Third are still likely to have heard of and perhaps even seen this movie thanks entirely to its being the directorial debut of Hayao Miyazaki in the world of feature film. Even many non-anime, non-animation moviegoers know Miyazaki’s name thanks to the man having single-handedly directing more “timeless classics” than the entirety of the Disney animation studios. These films include My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Howl’s Moving Castle. Several of his films (most notable Nausicaa) rank among my top films of all time, and I’ve never let a friend have a little kid without me sending them a copy of My Neighbor Totoro as a gift (usually accompanied by a copy of Godzilla’s Revenge, as both should be required viewing for any wide-eyed and adventurous kid who needs to be brought up proper).

Let me start off by saying that I love Odin. Absolutely love it. All those people in the world who call it one of the worst animated films of all time? Liars. Every one of them. Dirty, rotten, filthy liars. Let me further preface that admission by freely admitting that I have no illusions as to the quality of Odin. It’s awful. It’s a shining example of everything that can go wrong with anime feature filmmaking. It’s bloated, needlessly long, often tedious, thinly characterized, nigh incomprehensible, and since the creators dreamed that it would be a Yamato-style series, it doesn’t even have an ending. Even if, like me, you are a fan of so-called “old anime,” there’s a 99% chance that if you rent Odin, you will never make it to the end (much like the filmmakers themselves). And there’s a pretty high probability that it will make you angry at me, and possibly mildly violent over the fact that I somehow swayed you into thinking it might be a good thing to add to your queue. So let me get this out of the way right now: Odin is a completely pointless 140-minute disaster that you should avoid at all costs.

Created by Japanese artist Monkey Punch (surprisingly, not his real name) in the 1960s, Lupin the Third was a mixture of James Bond, Matt Helm, Cary Grant from To Catch a Thief, and whatever guy you can think of who grabs boobs a lot. Bill Clinton, I guess. Lupin the Third was meant to be the jet-setting super-thief great grandson of Arsene Lupin, a beloved French pulp character who was very much the “gentleman thief.” Lupin the Third jettisons the gentleman part most of the time but excels in the thievery department. Quite in contrast to his famous relative, Lupin the Third is a crass, horny, occasionally sleazy, always smart-alec guy with a weakness for beautiful girls. Together with his parters in crime Jigen (a former yakuza hitman and reportedly the greatest crack shot in the world) and Goemon (a guy who identifies a little too heavily with the romantic ideal of the mysterious, wandering samurai), Lupin trots the globe in search of treasure to be found, banks to be robbed, chicks to be nailed, and smug rich guys to be kicked in the jaw. Complicating Lupin’s life are two more characters: dogged Interpol inspector Zenigata, whose entire life revolves around finally arresting the wily Lupin; and Fujiko (whose name means “peaks”), a big-breasted flirt who is sometimes Lupin’s partner, sometimes his rival, and usually both.

By the time The Silencers was in theaters, producer Irving Allen was already kicking off production on the next Matt Helm film. Originally planned to be The Ambushers, for whatever reason (and not that it mattered, given how thin the connection between books and movies was) Allen moved things around, and Murderers’ Row became the second Matt Helm movie. Although I can’t imagine any fan of Donald Hamilton’s books holding out hope that the movies would be anything like the novels after the drunken hijinks of The Silencers, it still must have given readers pause to hear that Murderers’ Row was the next to get the swingin’ cocktail treatment. The fifth book in the series, published in 1962 immediately after The Silencers, it is among the bleakest and angriest of the Helm stories.

In February of 1966, audiences got their first look at the finished product that started with the dark, violent Matt Helm novels of Donald Hamilton and ended up in the hands of ill-tempered producer Irving Allen and boozy Rat Packer Dean Martin. Leading up to the release of the first film in the series, The Silencers, there had been a barrage of publicity, most of it focused on the bevy of semi-clad beauties populating the film (Dean Martin himself was busy with other film projects and the launch of his very popular new TV variety show). There was little in the pre-release marketing to inspire hope in fans of Donald Hamilton’s books that this Matt Helm would bear any resemblance at all to the character of the same name in the novels. As the lights went down and the curtains parted (yes, we used to have those in movie theaters), it was time for Irving Allen and Dean Martin to deliver their idea of America’s response to James Bond.

Director-producer Irving Allen has been charitably referred to as a bit gruff, or rough around the edges. Less charitably, a bully. Even less charitably, a complete asshole. Working his way from junior editor up through the ranks, he eventually carved out a pretty successful if low-key career as the producer or director of a number of shorts, including the Academy Award winning Climbing the Matterhorn. Wanting more from his career though, he partnered with another struggling producer, Brit Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, to form Warwick Films. Based out of England so they could take advantage of lucrative tax breaks, Warwick made a number of successful “boy’s own adventure” style films that allowed Allen to indulge his taste for costumed mini-epics and Broccoli a chance to make a name for himself with the help of his mercurial but close friend and partner.

If that line, the first sentence in the first Matt Helm novel by Donald Hamilton, had been the only sentence in the book, then there would have been very little stylistic conflict between the Matt Helm of the books and the incarnation of the character that eventually fond its way onto movie screens. Of course, a single sentence doesn’t exactly make for a great novel, and we soon learn that Matt Helm is taking the martini across the room to his wife during a dull suburban cocktail party. From there, things get a lot darker and more violent.

When the only country in the world that has had atomic bombs dropped on it puts a mushroom cloud in one of its movies, it tends to have more resonance than when, say, the Italians do it. When the Italians set off an atomic bomb, it almost always heralds the arrival of post-apocalyptic, dune buggy-driving leather-and-shoulderpad aficionados. When Japan does it, however, it is something altogether heavier. It can also usher in not the solemn thoughtfulness one might expect, but at least in the movies I watch, instead signifies something supremely weird is about to happen, as if the sheer destructive capability is so difficult to wrap one’s head around — even when it’s been used on you — that there is no way to deal with it other than through the application of sheer strangeness.

Terror Beneath The Sea is a movie with a lot of charm. There are the wondrous conventions of Sixties science fiction: bold colors and sleek design, underwater cities built in miniature, torpedo battles, a safety-striped submarine, and even a Nehru-suited mad man. But Sonny Chiba is the most charming thing in Terror Beneath The Sea. As the romantic lead, Chiba portrays a character with an endearing sweetness he rarely, if ever, gets to present. In a way, Chiba is playing a character other than his usual “Sonny Chiba.”